This weekend will be a flurry of activity for those participating in the 48-hour film festival. Students and community members participating in the festival will have two full days to write, film, edit and produce a video.

The project hosted by the University Activities Commission films committee. Groups will begin their films at 9 p.m. sharp Friday night, and the finished product must be submitted by 9 p.m.
Sunday evening.

This year marks the nine year anniversary of the event, but is the second year it is being hosted by the university. Chippewa Valley Community Television organized the event for the first seven years, said Rob Mattison, the first coordinator
of the event.

Mattison now works on campus for Learning and Technology Services, but remembers his early days of participating in the event. His entire family would participate, he said. His kids would write the story and Mattison would film
and edit it.

Mattison said because of this project, he was able to watch his children grow up.

Participation is open to any student or community member, said Shannon McInnis, the UAC films committee chair. In the past, even children have participated.

“We get a wide range of people, and that’s one of the things that makes it really interesting,” McInnis said. “We have adults and community members who have done it before or that have a lot of experience in film making and then just film buffs who saw the poster.”

Every year, participants are assigned a theme to work with, said McInnis. This year’s theme is monsters and magic. Groups also have to follow a few guidelines and requirements, she said.

There is a ten minute time limit on films, and each group is given a prop and line of dialogue to include in their movie, McInnis said. She said there are no limits on group size, however. In the past, there have been groups as small as five and as large as 20.

“If someone wanted to make a claymation by themselves with a camera, that would be fine with us,” McInnis said.

Brodie Haenke is a member of the films committee, but also participates in creating a video. As a high school student, he participated in 48-hour film projects in Minneapolis.

In Minneapolis, many of the contestants were professional film makers and did the festival for publicity. The Eau Claire festival is much less competitive, he said.

“I like the Eau Claire 48-hour film festival because it’s a little smaller, it’s not so serious,” Haenke said. “People do it because they love doing it.”

Finished films will be shown Oct. 30 at Woodland Theater, Haenke said. The showing will be free and open to the public. It is a great opportunity for community members and students, in particular, to see their work on the big screen, he said.

“You can put anything you want on YouTube and no one will ever see it,” Haenke said. “But to have an actual movie theater … and to have people sit down and watch your work makes it worth it.”